Akizuki Denshi: The Japanese Parts Store That Practiced Open Source Before the Term Existed
Publishing Schematics Before "Open Source" Was a Word
Akizuki Denshi Tsusho, a 55-year-old Akihabara institution, has been publishing complete schematics for its electronic kits since before 'open source' was a word. Founder Akio Tsujimoto's philosophy—'if you disclose all the information, customers can fix mistakes themselves'—turned the store into a maker favorite. With annual revenue of ¥3 billion, 1,200 daily online orders, and an 85% repeat-customer rate, Akizuki operates like a 'greengrocer of electronic parts,' hand-picking inventory and manufacturing in-house. The company's AKI-PIC programmer, sold for $25–30, undercut official tools and sold hundreds of thousands of units, cementing its reputation as Japan's go-to source for microcontrollers.
“If you disclose all the information, customers can fix mistakes themselves.”
- analog31
Published schematics go back to the earliest days of radio. Electronics magazines and the Radio Amateur's Handbook are roughly a century old.
Before that, there was science. Although the rules were loosely defined, scientists were expected to provide enough detail in their papers for someone else to replicate their work. That's where I learned about open design, before I learned to program.
Into the modern age, when "code" became part of electronics projects, the magazines printed source code listings, and later required authors to provide their code for an online repository. I published a couple of those articles back in the day.
- MomsAVoxell
Apropos open electronics, one of my most treasured toys is a Denshi Blocks electronics experiments kit, with a synthesizer chip in it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denshi_block
There are professional versions of the Denshi block, used in engineering schools in Japan in the 80's/90's (as I recall), to lay out circuits and serve as a test-bed for student lab work:
https://www.denshiblock.co.jp/whatdbk.html
(See also: https://www.denshiblock.co.jp/seihinindex.html ..)
In my case, it's just a great reminder of the 70's, and how bright and shiny the future used to seem. Its also a pretty fun little woo-hoo-bonky-boing synth toy, now and then ..
I would have to wonder if there aren't pro blocks in that store somewhere, probably in their own neatly labeled section ..
- elevation
20 years ago my town had a boutique electronics store, somewhat like a Radio Shack, except they'd developed corporate sales as a revenue stream instead of pushing cellphone contracts on consumers. It carried on until the owner died last year.
I enjoy seeing boutique businesses but it's nice to see one where the core operation (not just the IP) has a shot at outlasting the founder.